Four months after being sentenced to six months of work release and three years of probation for violating the conditions of a deferred sentence he received for his involvement in a 2008 fight, former University of Colorado linebacker Lynn Katoa has been arrested again.

Katoa, 21, is being held on $2,500 bond at the Boulder County Jail on new third-degree assault and probation violation charges after police say he head-butted a former teammate early Sunday outside Shooters Grill and Bar at 1801 13th St. in Boulder.

He was arrested Thursday in connection with the weekend incident. Police began investigating after Aric Goodman, a placekicker for the Buffs, waved down an officer early Sunday to report that he had been assaulted, according to an arrest report. Goodman told police he had been at the bar with some friends when he stepped outside to make a phone call and saw Katoa, police reported.

Goodman said they made eye contact, but didn't exchange words, and a bouncer told Goodman that Katoa had been trying to get in the bar but had been refused, according to police. Goodman went back inside for a while until he and his friends decided to leave and go to the Walrus Saloon.

Goodman was standing with several other members of the CU football team outside Shooters when someone told him that Katoa was mad because he didn't help get him into the bar, police reported. At that point, Katoa came out of an alcove and said to Goodman, "Hey, you trying to fight? Let's go one on one," according to police.

Katoa then head-butted Goodman in the forehead, police reported. Goodman didn't fight back, but instead ran back into the bar. Katoa tried to follow him, according to police, but a bouncer stopped him. Goodman told police that he didn't have words with Katoa before the assault and had never had a negative encounter with the former player. Police reported that Goodman's head was red and bleeding.

Lynn Katoa didn't start playing football until high school. He was recruited by places such as Texas and USC.
Al Hartmann/Salt Lake Tribune 8/10/07
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Al Hartmann
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Another football player who saw the incident told officers that it came "out of nowhere." The bouncer told police he thought Katoa was going to start throwing punches until a friend pulled him away.

At the time of the alleged attack, Katoa was on probation, which came with an order prohibiting him from consuming alcohol. He was arrested Thursday while meeting with his probation officer.

As he was being led to the police officer's squad car, Katoa asked what he was being arrested for, according to the arrest report. An officer told him "third-degree assault," and Katoa responded, "I talked to that kid and we got everything worked out. He's my teammate," police reported.

The once-promising CU Buffs prospect was on probation for charges stemming from a 2008 fight at an off-campus party where he hit a man in the head with a rock. Initially, he was given a three-year deferred sentence that would have been cleared off his record if he stayed out of trouble.

But he violated the terms of his sentence by skipping his substance-abuse monitoring and treatment and was sent to the jail's work-release program in March. Katoa told the judge at the time that he was "young and dumb" when he committed the 2008 crime and that he's "learned a lot and matured a lot from that incident."

He's scheduled to appear on the violation charge in his old case Monday.

Katoa, who was attending a junior college in Arizona when he was arrested in February for violating the terms of his deferred sentence, was cut from CU's team last year because he wasn't academically eligible to play.

He came to CU in January 2008 as a five-star recruit and was considered among the most sought-after linebackers in the nation that year. Two months after arriving on campus, Katoa was arrested on the felony menacing charge and was unable to get his grades up enough to rejoin the team.

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